"The Noonday Demon explores the subterranean realms of an illness which is on the point of becoming endemic, and which more than anything else mirrors the present state of our civilization and its profound discontents. As wide-ranging as it is incisive, this astonishing work is a testimony both to the muted suffering of millions and to the great courage it must have taken the author to set his mind against it."

-- W. G. Sebald

#Taken Quotes #Mirrors Quotes #Civilization Quotes

“I have only to speak for myself; to speak for freedom for myself; to determine for freedom for myself; and in doing so, I speak and determine for the freedom of every slave on every plantation, and for the fugitives on my right hand.”
“I became a musician because that's really what I wanted to do when I was fifteen, but I had other abilities.”
“I tend to stare at people and memorize what they're saying and how they say it.”
“If you take care of the little things, the big things take care of themselves.”
“I think it was rather an advantage not having any living poets in England or America in whom one took any particular interest. I don't know what it would be like but I think it would be a rather troublesome distraction to have such a lot of dominating presences, as you call them, about. Fortunately we weren't bothered by each other.”
“Even now I can't trust life. It did too many awful things to me as a kid.”
“Don't worry, I won't bite. At least not in the way you're afraid of.”
“I was diagnosed a number of years ago with obsessive-compulsive disorder - which everyone has, to some degree - and I have this really annoying trait where in conversation, I always steer it back to something that happened to me.”

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